Hello All, I'm curious if anyone else has experienced a dramatic decrease in sales due to the changing or elimination of genre subcategories? For instance, my ebook, Desperate Desires, was listed under Erotica > Historical Erotica and sold exceedingly well. But recently, the "Historical Erotica" subcategory was eliminated and sales plummetted as a result. Anyone else experience similar circumstances? I'm hoping B&N brings back its subcategories soon!

My sales are down almost 70% this month, while Amazon sales are soaring three times the BN sales, which was not the case just a few months ago when BN was 20% higher than Amazon. Something is going on. I didn't realize they had changed the categories. I hope they fix the problem soooooon!

Hi Everyone, I agree that B&N has been a boon for us writers and that it's likely the changes we're going through are all growing pains as they move to higher levels of service toward us writers. I want to point out that, personally, in February and March of 2011, my sales for Desperate Desires on B&N quadrupled my Amazon.com sales. However, with the elimination of the subcategories, sales became virtually non-existent. I want to share my letter and the response I've received from the PubIt Team. Please take the time to send them an email to let them know you, too, want them to bring back the subcategories. It's one thing to voice an opinion here. But it's more powerful to address the issue with those who can bring about a solution.

Thank you for making us aware that the Erotica subcategories are not currently displaying on the BN.com website. We are looking into this issue and hope to have it resolved in the next few days. We will reach out to you to let you know once the subcategories for Erotica are visible again.

As we mentioned previously, we are working on enabling you to select these subcategories yourself within the PubIt! portal for any future books that you may choose to make available through PubIt! This is a large system change but is a high priority for our team and we want to assure you that we are working on incorporating this enhancement.

Foremost, I hope my letter finds you well. It would be my honor if you (or someone on your staff) could take a few minutes to review my request and, if possible, intercede on my behalf. Doing so will also be mutually beneficial to Barnes and Noble.

My eBook, Desperate Desires, was published in February 2011. As you can see from the attached email string, I lobbied for weeks to get Desperate Desires into the Romance > Erotica > Historical Erotica category. It took four weeks to accomplish this. And in March 2011, sales for Desperate Desires skyrocketed to the tune of over 150 copies sold per day!

But then in April 2011, the Romance > Erotica > Historical Erotica category was eliminated and my eBook sales plummeted dramatically. I was able to trace and attribute the decrease in sales directly to the elimination of the Romance > Erotica > Historical Erotica category.

Theresa, I’ve written B&N’s PubIt team many times about this. But I’m once again faced with the same challenge I encountered when I originally tried to have my book placed within the Romance > Erotica > Historical Erotica category: I was told that subcategories did not exist. I had to take snapshots to show that there were 69 books listed in the Historical Erotica category. (See snapshot below.)

Only after showing that the category did exist was I able to have my eBook listed. But now, the category has been eliminated all together.

Theresa, is there anything you or someone on your staff can do to assist me? I’m certain there are other authors who have been impacted by the elimination of the Historical Erotica category.

Please know that B&N has done wonderfully well in selling my eBook. And I appreciate the great things that the PubIt team is doing on behalf of authors like myself.

If there is anyway you can look into this for me, I would be greatly appreciative.

Thank you for taking the time to review my letter. Your consideration means a lot.

Writers, as you can see, the PubIt Team has promised to fix the subcategorie problem within days. Let's hold them to it. As writers, we can help ensure that B&N.com remains the premier place for us to publish our works. If something is broken, tell them. And then hold them accountable until they fix it.

Hello All, I've been emailing B&N on a weekly basis, but have yet to receive a response in regards to them categorizing eBooks. If you believe your sales are affected in any way due to missing subcategories, I strongly encourage you to drop an email to the PubIt Team. The more voices the better! Thanks All...

I too have sent out emails asking about this. The month of May was so sad I just made the $10 mark to receive a payment check. I really and truly believe that is in result to all these changes. I realize that these changes are supposed to make it shopping friendly, but what about selling friendly?

If the Pubit team ever stops in here they need to make note of all of us and our problems. Let's hope that the maintenance workups going on tonight fix some of our mounting problems!